Official: Officer needed at each local school

In the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school massacre, one Anderson County commissioner is calling for the local government to fund School Resource Officers in every school in the entire county.

by Donna Smith/Staff

In the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school massacre, one Anderson County commissioner is calling for the local government to fund School Resource Officers in every school in the entire county.

In response, County Commission later approved a measure to call for a meeting or work session on school security involving officials from the three school systems — Anderson County, Oak Ridge and Clinton — the county government and governments of all the cities, each city’s police department and the Sheriff’s Department.

County Commissioner Jerry White, a former county Board of Education member, went to the podium to speak as a regular citizen during the public comments section of Monday’s Commission meeting. (See video of White at oakridger.com.)

White said he was speaking on behalf of his 5-year-old grandson.

“Now when the press talks about this murdering thug up here in Connecticut that killed these kids, they talk about president of the Honor Society and all the good stuff about him, but he’s a low life. He’s a scum bag. Whatever the lowest terms you can call somebody, that’s what these people are that come into a school and hurt a child,” White said.

“Our kids, when we take them and leave them at school in the morning, we leave them there, that being a safe place. ... They’re there to learn, they shouldn’t have to be there wondering about is somebody going to come in the door and shoot them or harm them.”

White said he knows that when each commissioner runs for office, he or she pledges no property tax increases.

“(But) I don’t think there’s a person in the county that would mind paying 2 or 3 more cents on their tax rate to make sure that we have an SRO officer in every school, in every school in this county.

“I think our kids deserve it,” he said.

White challenged Larry Foster, director of schools for the county school system, to work on getting SROs at each school, along with Sheriff Paul White to provide trained officers who are willing and capable of protecting the children. He also challenged the Commission and Chairman Chuck Fritts to make it a priority.

Saying the county has approximately $1.5 million in its undesignated fund balance, often called the “rainy-day fund,” White said, “It’d be a shame for something to happen in one of our schools and us have a million and a half dollars here where we could have hired an SRO officer.”

Charles Colburn, of Robin Lane, Andersonville, told commissioners his children have attended and his grandchildren currently attend Fairview Elementary School. He said the children are “sitting ducks in the school,” explaining in the past several doors to the school have been left unlocked.

He called for the doors to be locked and an armed police officer be at the front door. He said adults need to “protect them (the children) from the evil of society we live in today.”

Director of Schools Larry Foster said safety has always been his No. 1 goal for the school system.

Joe Forgety, the school system’s director of transportation, safety and adult education, said currently eight resource officers and one DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) officer man the county’s 17 schools. School and law enforcement officials will not reveal which schools the officers are located at, or how many hours they spend at various schools, for safety reasons. However, White said the officer at one school in the Norwood area is shared with two other schools.

Sheriff’s Department Chief Deputy Mark Lucas said the officers at the schools are part of the cooperative agreement between the school system and his department. The cost is split, he said, with the school system paying half the cost of salaries and benefits, uniforms, vehicles and equipment. Forgety said the school system pays approximately $214,000 a year.

The remainder of the officers’ time outside the school year is spent working on various assignments for the Sheriff’s Department, which is their employer.

Lucas said 17 SROs — one for each school — would also require a supervisor, so the total would need to be 18 officers.

Monday’s Commission meeting began with a moment of silence for the 20 children and 7 adults killed, their families, and the people of Newtown, Conn., as gunman Adam Lanza opened fire inside Sandy Hook Elementary School last Friday. He then killed himself.